


Saving the Best for Last

by Celandine



Category: Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: M/M, One Night Stand, One Shot, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-30
Updated: 2010-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian hadn't planned to attend the Shermer High School twenty-year reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving the Best for Last

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flora (florahart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/gifts).



> For Florahart, at the request of Inell, who persuaded me to try a new fandom and gave the prompts "reunion, cherry, rope."

Brian paused in the doorway. It was a hotel banquet room, not the Shermer High School gymnasium, but the impression was uncannily like that of a postgame dance. Twenty years after graduation and the jocks still sat with the jocks, the brains still sat with the brains. Depressing.

He'd gotten two invitations to the reunion; one a full-color photocopy, folded not quite square and signed by Mindy Jackson Rausch, co-chair of the reunion committee. The other was an e-mail sent to his work address and nearly lost in the daily spam. That one was sent by Jackie Fitzgerald, the other co-chair. Clearly they had divided up the duties and either hadn't coordinated their efforts or were covering all their bases.

The double invitation notwithstanding, Brian hadn't planned to go. He'd outgrown Shermer long since. He had his own lab here in California, his own business, with six employees. He designed microchips for the big boys, always as an independent contractor, and they paid him what he was worth. He'd been netting well over a mill for years, even after paying his assistants and expenses and taxes. The first year he earned that much he'd paid off his parents' mortgage. They hadn't wanted to leave the dumpy three-bedroom ranch where they'd lived since Brian was two, and in fact they were _still_ there, with the living room furniture covered in plastic and the pots of Benjamin figs and spider plants that never seemed to grow. He went back about every third year, a flying visit over Christmas, leaving as soon as decently possible.

Then on a business trip in April he'd had a two-hour layover in Denver. He had been drinking a mediocre espresso during the wait when he heard his name called and looked up to see Scott Tanzer standing there. They'd been pretty good friends in high school, but Scott had gone to some East Coast college, Swarthmore maybe, Brian couldn't remember, whereas Brian had gone to Caltech, and they'd lost touch he quickly in those pre-e-mail days.

"Brian, great to see you," said Scott. "I was pretty sure it was you."

"It _is_ me. Good to see you, too," said Brian.

"Can I sit down?"

Brian nodded and Scott took a seat.

"Hard to believe it's been almost twenty years." Scott shook his head.

_Not really_, Brian thought, looking at him. Scott had pouches under his eyes and was rapidly losing his hair. He'd always been chunky, but now his belly strained over his waistband.

"So, going back for the reunion?" Scott asked.

And that was how Brian found himself standing here now, somehow roped into it by his old friend Scott. If he hadn't promised the guy that he'd see him here, he would have turned and left, gone back upstairs to his room and channel-surfed until he dropped off, then escaped to the airport in the morning. As it was, he sighed and edged around the tables to the bar. Cash bar, naturally. His fifty bucks supposedly would get him a glass of wine along with his overcooked chicken entrée, but for pre-dinner drinks, everyone was on his own. Two hours of reception and chit-chat to endure before dinner, and another couple of hours of dancing after. Brian couldn't wait. Well, a drink would help ease the tedium.

There was an array of bottles on the counter behind the bar, and a pyramid of cans of the non-alcoholic choices. His eye was caught by one of them. He hadn't had a cherry coke in – he couldn't think how many years. On impulse he asked for one with a shot of vodka, just the sort of thing that had been served at the parties he'd never been invited to when he was a high school brain.

The bartender poured without comment and dropped a maraschino cherry on top of the ice before handing the glass to Brian. Before he could move, someone reached around him and plucked the cherry away by its stem.

He turned and found himself staring at John Bender.

Without a word, Bender popped the cherry into his mouth, stem and all. Brian could see his jaws working. After a moment, Bender put his hand to his lips and brought forth the stem, tied in a neat knot.

"Very nice." Brian managed to make the words sound bored, but his heart was racing. "You impress the girls with that, Bender?"

Bender shook his head. He hadn't gone to seed the way Scott had; his hair was still thick and dark, and he still carried himself with that casual animal grace, although he didn't seem quite so likely to maul anyone who happened get in his way. His eyes raked over Brian, flicking back a second time to the earring he wore. "It doesn't impress the guys much either, these days."

Brian digested that. Did Bender mean to imply that he was gay too? Because that was sure how Brian was reading it. He'd thought Bender was pretty hot, way back when, although he'd never seriously considered the possibility that Bender might actually be gay. Bender had never been without some girl or girls associated with him in high school. Hell, even Claire Standish had gone out with him for a while, as Brian well remembered, much to the astonishment and occasional disgust of their peers.

"You have a table yet?" he asked abruptly. Bender shook his head. "Come on then."

Brian saw Scott, chatting animatedly with several other people Brian vaguely remembered, his wife looking bored next to him. Luckily that table was full, so Brian only waved when Scott looked up, and mouthed, "Later," before moving off with Bender – surprisingly – trailing behind him. They found a table that had no one else sitting near.

"You look like you've done well for yourself," Bender said.

"Yeah," said Brian a little self-consciously. Most of the time he worked in jeans and T-shirts, but he'd discovered that he liked to dress in nice clothes when the occasion warranted it. Tonight he was wearing finely tailored wool trousers that were cut close enough to his ass to show it off, and a cashmere top that likewise made it obvious that Brian kept in shape. Nothing ostentatious; it would take a good eye to realize the quality. He was surprised that Bender had, really. "I'm in California, these days; I design microchip circuitry. How about you?"

He asked from politeness. He'd always figured that Bender would be the sort of guy who would end up in prison, or if he managed to stay out, would barely hold down a job as a car mechanic, or maybe a self-employed gardener, one of those guys who cuts lawns in the summer and shovel snow in the winter. He was wrong.

"Law," said Bender.

Brian's jaw dropped.

"You'll catch flies that way," said Bender. There was a glint in his eye, not the dangerous look he had always had in high school, more a gleam of smirking enjoyment, as if he had expected Brian's astonishment.

Hastily Brian closed his mouth. "Um. What kind of law?" he asked.

"Corporate law." Bender leaned back a little and lifted his own drink, whiskey on the rocks. He kept his eyes on Brian, waiting for his reaction.

"What made you choose that?" Brian floundered.

Bender gave him a wicked grin. "Because I enjoy figuring out how to help my clients steal and not get caught."

Brian laughed. After a second he worried that Bender might think he was laughing _at_ him, but he couldn't help it. It was just too funny – that Bender had somehow against the odds managed to get into not only college but law school, and then that he'd chosen that particular branch of law for that exact reason. Unless he was lying, trying to see if Brian was dumb enough to believe such an unlikely thing? Brian brought his laughter under control and glanced at Bender, who didn't look either angry or smug, to Brian's relief; he was still sitting there with that same smirk, so Brian guessed it really was true.

Come to think of it, Bender's clothes were just as expensively understated as Brian's own, although in a very different style. They looked like the sort of thing you might wear to a club, one where the cover charge was at least twenty dollars, if they let you in at all. Leather trousers, but the sort that didn't make an issue of it, being cut like regular ones. A shirt that looked like any ordinary Oxford, until you saw how the fabric draped and realized that no thirty dollar shirt from Penney's ever looked like that. The only ring on Bender's fingers was a thick gold band set with a square ruby. Brian stared at it for a second, wondering how much it had cost, and realized that it was on Bender's first finger, not his ring finger. The stone matched the earring he wore.

All of this he filed away mentally in a flash. Not _proof_ that Bender was gay, no, but suggestive, even without his remark earlier. Brian licked his lips. He was shit at small talk, always had been, but he asked as casually as he could manage, "Have you stayed friends with anyone from Shermer? I haven't."

Bender shook his head.

"Not Claire?" Brian felt funny, saying her name. When he'd been trying to figure out if he was really gay or not, he used to try to fantasize about her when he jerked off in the shower, staying there until his mom shouted at him not to use up all the hot water.

"No, I haven't stayed friends with Claire." Bender raised his eyebrows. "Or kept in touch with Andrew or Allison for that matter."

"I haven't seen any of them here tonight," Brian remarked. He turned his head to look over the tables, in case he'd missed one of them.

"Claire will doubtless be here sooner or later, a little bit drunk before she walks in the door. Andrew..." Bender pointed, and then Brian spotted him, gone to flab the same way Scott had, his body pushing at the seams of his suit, his laugh just a little too loud. "No one seems to know what happens to Allison. She was last heard of in Seattle about five years ago." Bender shrugged and drained his glass.

"I thought you said you didn't keep in touch."

Bender shrugged again. "I'm local, more or less. I hear stuff from people who heard it from other people. If I tried I could probably even count up the exact number of divorces among our classmates."

"Well, I wouldn't be adding to that number," said Brian.

"I don't imagine you would, at that. Neither would I." Bender's eyes looked even darker than Brian had remembered them.

The tables were starting to fill, and Brian could see several people moving purposefully in their direction. "Look," he said hurriedly, "do you want to go for a drink or something after this is over?"

"Why not now?" asked Bender.

Brian blinked. Well, there was the airfare, the price of the dinner ticket, the fact that he'd come specially for the stupid reunion and hadn't said hello yet to Scott or any of his other old friends...

"Why not?" he said and stood up. "Do you know a place?"

"Sure, I know a place. It depends on what kind of place you want. Or – you're not staying with your parents, are you?"

"No," said Brian flatly. He hadn't told them he was coming, figured the chance of running into them was small enough to risk it. The idea of staying in his own room was just too awful.

"Then we could go back to your hotel and get shitfaced on whatever is in the minibar there. It _does_ have a minibar, doesn't it?"

Brian squinted as he tried to remember. "I think so. Or we could go out to a liquor store and pick something up. I'm staying here, actually, it seemed easiest."

The people approaching had nearly reached them now. Brian looked up and did a double take. It was Claire. He had just time to mutter to Bender, "Room 813. Forty minutes. I'll go get some whiskey," before Claire arrived, husband in tow.

As Bender had predicted, she was already noticeably intoxicated; Brian guessed she'd had two or three before leaving home, and another before crossing this room.

"John, John Bender! Oh how wonderful! Stephen, this is John Bender, I know I told you about him, the rebel turned gentleman. It's been far too long, John, how are you?" She flung her arms around Bender, seeming not to notice that he patted her back once, briefly, and then waited for her to disentangle herself from him.

"Claire," he acknowledged, "and you must be her husband, Stephen...?"

"Stephen Lovell," the man acknowledged, plucking Claire off Bender and guiding her into a chair with the air of a man who had done this many times before. "Pleased to meet you."

"Brian Johnson," said Brian, leaning across the table to shake Stephen's hand. Claire noticed him then, blinking in an owlish way.

"Brian? Oh Brian, how lovely to see you, too. You _are_ sitting here, aren't you?" She patted her hair in an automatic gesture. It was as red as ever, although Brian was sure it must be dyed, now.

"Actually I was just leaving," he said. "There are some other old friends I promised I'd talk to. Maybe I'll see you later."

Claire pouted, but Brian gave her a smile and made his escape. He had the rental car key with him, although he'd felt silly putting it in his pocket, not expecting to need it. Now it meant he could slip right out to the parking lot and go. He thought he remembered how to get to a liquor store from here.

He chose a nice single malt scotch, not too peaty, and was back sliding the card key into the lock of his hotel room door a little over half an hour later. Bender had never said for sure that he would meet Brian, of course, so Brian decided to give him twenty minutes to allow for the possibility that Claire proved hard to escape. If Bender hadn't turned up by then, Brian would go back down to the banquet room.

Picking up the plastic bucket by the sink, he went out and along the hallway for ice from the machine tucked between the elevator and the stairs. He wondered if anyone ever really used those stairs, except in an emergency. Leaving the ice bucket under the spout, Brian opened the door to the stairwell and leaped back in surprise at the sight of Bender where he'd expected only concrete and iron and echoes.

"What the fuck?" Brian's voice was a near-shout.

Bender cocked his head, and before Brian could do or say anything more, he had stepped close and sealed his mouth to Brian's in a kiss. He tasted of whiskey and of the cheese chunks and salami slices from the hors d'oeuvre platters on the tables downstairs.

When Bender broke the kiss off, Brian found himself panting, just a little bit, not enough to be obvious; on the other hand, his dick was so stiff it felt like it was going to poke a hole right through his underwear. He grabbed the ice bucket and held it strategically. Bender had probably felt his erection, but Brian didn't figure anyone else who happened to be passing needed to know about it.

"Why did you come up the stairs, anyhow?" he asked as they walked back to his room. He handed Bender the ice bucket and fumbled with the card key again to let them in.

"I like the unexpected," said Bender with a shrug. He went to the sink and picked up two glasses. "I'm glad these are real," he said, holding them out to Brian to drop some ice in. "I hate those flimsy plastic ones."

"Yeah," agreed Brian. He unscrewed the top from the whiskey bottle and poured. "Cheers."

They clinked glasses and each drank. Brian watched the muscles in Bender's throat move as he swallowed.

"I didn't know you were gay," he said abruptly. "Back in high school, I mean."

Bender had picked the one easy chair in the room to sit in, stretching his legs out and managing to look casual. He gestured at the wooden desk chair, the only other chair in the room. Brian dropped into it as Bender said, "That puts me ahead of _you_, then, because I figured you were."

Brian felt vaguely indignant at that. He hadn't been sure himself, so how had Bender known? "You figured I must be gay because I was a brain and not an athlete?"

"No, because you couldn't keep your eyes off me any more than Claire could." Bender smirked and took another swig from his glass, the ice rattling as he drained it.

"Oh," said Brian blankly. He'd had no idea he was so obvious back then, and wondered who else had guessed. He reached for the bottle and refilled their glasses. "When did you realize that _you_ were gay, John?"

The name felt strange on his tongue, but he couldn't address the guy as "Bender" even though that was how he'd always thought of him.

"I'm _not_ gay."

What the fuck did that mean?

"You're not?"

"Nope. I'm bi-sex-u-al." Bender dragged out the word, enunciating each syllable, and grinned again. "Although these days I pretty much go for men. They're generally less likely to be looking for a commitment, and I'm not interested in making one."

Brian nodded. That was his own attitude, although he supposed that maybe someday he'd find someone to settle down with. If he didn't, though, that would be okay too.

"So." Bender lifted his glass toward Brian. "Enough with the small talk, I have to do plenty of that with clients. What are you up for tonight?"

"I don't bottom," said Brian. Better to get that clear up front. "I don't like it. Other than that, I'm up for just about anything."

He half-expected Bender to say that _he_ didn't bottom, either, and suggest mutual hand jobs or blow jobs instead, but instead Bender just asked, "Do you have lube?"

"Yeah," admitted Brian. He hadn't expected to be having sex on this trip, but he liked to use it when he jerked himself off, so he kept some in his travel kit.

"Good. Then you can fuck me if you want. Do you want to fuck me, Brian?" Bender's voice was soft, persuasive, almost hypnotic, and Brian found himself nodding.

Bender got up and went where Brian's leather toiletry kit sat neatly zipped beside the sink. "In here?" He didn't wait for an answer, just unzipped it and rummaged around until he found the half-empty tube. He put it on the nightstand along with a couple of the condoms that Brian also carried just in case, turned toward Brian, and started to unbutton his shirt.

"I'll do that." Brian came to take over the task, slipping the buttons through the buttonholes one by one to reveal a muscular, only lightly furred chest beneath. He licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed it over one nipple, which rose to a tiny peak in response..

Peeling Bender out of his leather trousers took slightly more effort, but within minutes they were both naked. They stretched out on the bed, kissing again, hands traveling over each other's bodies. Brian touched the old scars of cigarette burns on the inside of Bender's arm, remembering that day in detention when the five of them had become, in some odd way, friends. Nothing had changed, afterward, and yet everything had.

"_No_," said Bender in a rough voice, sounding more like the Bender of twenty years ago than the smooth lawyer he'd become.

Brian nodded. _I can understand that_, he thought. Instead he caressed the bulge of muscle on Bender's upper arm. "You must work out."

"Three times a week."

"Me, too," said Brian, moving his hands to explore down Bender's back, feeling the tight curve of his ass.

"I figured."

Those were their last spoken words for quite a while. He might have liked to bottom, but that didn't mean Bender didn't take charge in bed. He pinned Brian under him and started sucking and licking his way down Brian's torso, mouthing the base of his cock briefly as he passed it and then continuing down his thighs.

When Brian tried to reciprocate, to touch or kiss Bender in return, Bender swatted his hand away and resumed. After a while he reached for a condom and the lube and rolled the latex over Brian's jutting dick, putting a little squeeze of gel inside first, which Brian appreciated because it improved the sensation a lot. Then he slicked up Brian thoroughly, did a cursory job – in Brian's opinion, but it was Bender's call – of putting some lube on himself, and finally knelt over Brian and slowly, slowly, eased himself down, letting Brian slide into his ass practically millimeter by millimeter, it seemed, until he could go no further.

He started to move, still deliberately, flexing his legs so that he pumped up and down in slow motion, his eyes intent on Brian's face the whole time. Brian might have thought he was looking for approval, except that Bender had never in his experience _wanted_ approval. What he wanted now – other than some hot sex – was hard to fathom. Brian's groans and moans as Bender began to increase his tempo were apparently satisfactory, however. Brian wasn't used to this position, he hadn't had great experiences with it in the past, but with Bender, he decided he liked it.

Bender's dick bobbed in front of Brian, still mostly hard, and Brian fumbled for the lube. He coated his palm and wrapped his hand around Bender's dick, letting it slide through his grasp as Bender fucked himself on Brian. Pretty soon Bender's groans and gasps filled in the gaps between the sounds Brian was making, and soon, _too soon_ thought Brian with a touch of regret, he felt himself on the verge of orgasm. Bender froze, his whole body stiffening, and came onto Brian's chest in two thick white pulses. His asshole contracted, and the additional pressure sent Brian over the edge too.

When it was over, he sighed and put his forearm over his eyes, limp in the aftermath. Bender was breathing in great liquid pants. When Brian felt him start to move off, he reached down to hold the condom in place as Bender slid away, then pulled it off and tied a knot in the end so it wouldn't drip.

Bender flopped down beside him.

"Thanks," said Brian after a couple of minutes. "That made this trip to Shermer more worthwhile than the reunion ever could."

"No kidding." Bender gave a sharp bark of a laugh. "You know, I bet we could still go to it if we wanted. I kind of hate to waste the registration fee, although this was a hell of a lot more enjoyable." He rolled over to look at the clock. "Yeah, they probably haven't even started serving the fucking chicken yet."

"Another drink here, and then we go?" suggested Brian.

"That works." Bender scooted up into a sitting position, propped against the fat hotel pillows, while Brian poured more whiskey into their glasses and brought them back to the bed.

"To saving the best for last," said Bender with a funny smile as he clinked his glass against Brian's. "Bottoms up." He drank it off in a couple of swallows, then swung his legs off the mattress and started picking up his clothes. "First dibs on the bathroom," he said, and disappeared into it, leaving Brian to think about the toast Bender had made.

It wasn't hard to figure out, really. Brian was pretty sure that Bender had screwed Claire back in high school, and it sure wouldn't have surprised him to know that he'd nailed Allison too at some point. Brian guessed that somehow, some time, Bender had had sex with Andrew as well... which would leave Brian as the one of the Breakfast Club he'd never fucked.

Until tonight.

Brian thought about it and decided that even if he _was_ just another notch on Bender's belt, he didn't mind. It had certainly improved this reunion night far beyond anything he'd expected. He might even enjoy going back downstairs now and seeing all the people he used to know. He'd made himself a good life, and so had Bender, and if the others hadn't, well, that was their choice, and Brian knew better than to judge someone based on who he thought they were. Maybe Claire was happy in her alcoholic haze; maybe Andrew enjoyed whooping it up and being the center of attention of old buddies. Maybe Allison, wherever she was and whatever she was doing, had found some kind of happiness of her own. Brian hoped so.

He used a wad of Kleenex to clean himself up and pulled his clothes back on. When Bender stepped out of the bathroom, Brian was ready for whatever else might happen.


End file.
